Each passing day of the Ukrainian invasion is taking a toll on not only the lives but the future livelihood of millions. With optimism on war nearing its end, its important to start taking a stock of the extent of loss in public infrastructure, natural-resources and worst hit regions. Doing so, will not only help in targeting focused reparative efforts but also save time in policy reforms till surveys and ground assessments are undertaken.

Satellite data is a useful resource in the absence of real time data. Imagery from daytime satellites have already proven to be useful learning of the initial encroachment by Russian army, and how Russia strategically targeted Ukrainian grains. Nightlights can help in assessing the extent of economic disruption from loss in electrification, demolition of houses, public infrastructure.

Assessing impact of war in Ukarine from nightlights

The following images show the drastic drop in nightlights across Ukraine from January to May 2022.

It can be clearly seen that the lights intensity in highly lit (bright yellow) regions corresponding to cities Kyiv, Lyiv, Kharkhiv have drastically reduced since January and continue on a downward trend. Milder yello/orange regions capturing street lights from highways has almost disappeared, matching with ongoing reports from the ground. Lights from dark blue regions capturing small settlement have almost disappeared.

Electricity Demand

Drop in lights match with the drop in monthly electricity demand estimated by the IEA. This is a helpful validation as nightlights are often confounded by various biophysical, seasonal noise However,comparing with electricity demand confirms the perception, direction, and magnitude of the fall.

(source)[https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/ukraine-real-time-electricity-data-explorer]

Interactive map

Drop in nightlights across months

NOTE - It should be remembered that lights are not exactly income. While they can be used and have proven to be a helpful proxy for estimating economic growth. - Nightlight measures radiance of light in Watt/cm2/sr, and all the maps here use the same legend for comparing results ovetime - Nightlights data for month of June seems to been biased by external noise from bombing and is not included here - Nightlights map can be misleading with different color labels, the labels used here are based